Earlier this year, I was fortunate to attend a presentation by the partners of the design firm, Pentagram. I have studied their business model and followed their design-work/approach for years, and I had seen several of the partners speak on various occasions previously, but this was the first time I saw them appear together to walk through their work. This past April (18th to be exact), while living and working in New York, I went to go see three of the NY Pentagram partners—Michael Bierut, Paula Scher, and Michael Gericke—speak about designing visual identities for some of New York City’s most beloved institutions.
What follows is my accounting of the evening (minus the post-event dinner discussions and general good-times with my wonderful colleagues):
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The event was held at the Museum of the City of New York. The partners were eloquently introduced by the museum's curator, Donald Albrecht, and the President/Director, Susan Henshaw Jones--who put it perfectly when she said, "these designers have influenced the visual life of New York City."
Michael Beruit started the talk off by covering the basics of the Saks Fifth Avenue redesign and then parlayed that into a brief overview of the environmental designwork they had done for the New York Times headquarters. It goes without saying that the planning and research that goes into all of their work is intense, and the results are clearly effective and appropriate for their clients. Beruit's non-egotistical tone and razor-sharp wit in presenting the firm's work makes it all that much better.
Paula Scher walked everyone through slides of her work for the Shakespeare Festival, the New York Ballet, and the incredibly recognizable Public Theater campaigns, among others. Her penchant for large type on the floors, walls, interiors and exteriors is impressive AND expressive. I do wonder how long she can apply large type to architectural spaces and still keep it fresh. . .but it is a delight nonetheless to wonder what she'll do next. During the question and answer session, she spoke of how she goes to City Hall every couple of weeks to see what buildings, businesses and public spaces might need an identity. She is genuinely concerned and dedicated to building and promoting New Yorks cultural institutions.
I'd like to insert here that, as for my favorite "institution" which they have designed, I must say I'm a huge fan of the Shake Shack—a little burger joint that sits on the southeastern corner of Madison Square Park (you know, right at that awesome intersection of 5th Ave and 23rd where the FlatIron building stands strong). The place is a local icon with lines a block-long nearly all day -- see for yourself -- so, it is no wonder that Pentagram took on the facility design. Paula Scher said that they "did the design work for free or else the parks department was going to give the assignment to one of our competitors."
The one speaker who I hadn't heard before was Michael Gierecke. He is—much like Paula Scher—a master of design for environmental and architectural spaces. And he showed the audience several case studies. The most moving, perhaps, was his work for the World Trade Center site—especially the Temporary WTC Path Station. Hired to design the fence that surrounds the site, the designers treated the space with such respect and dignity. One key feature, as pointed out by Mr. Gierecke, was the use of transparent surfaces to surround the work site instead of the typical wooden perimeter fence most sites employ. This and the large, semi-transparent banners and informational graphics found throughout the space, gave visitors and passerby the opportunity to actually see the work going on. In doing so, the collaborators allowed the public not only a better understanding of the scope of rebuilding efforts, but a chance to "connect" with what had happened there—a sense for the impact, history and importance of the site.
After each of the partners ran through select slides of their work, they joined the museum's curator on stage for a question and answer session. I won't go into any detail on that, but suffice it to say that they were very open about the "business" of design and how they manage their business in terms of both client relationships and general structure. No surprise to those of us who have read their tell-all book, "Pentagram: The Compendium"back in the day.
In sum, it was an all too brief-but-inspiring overview of their work in connection with the culture of the City.
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